Joint lives

Hello Wiki,

Not been here for 5 years but here we go agin!

I have a joint lives CO dating back to 2002. My ex husband tried to vary this in 2014 but failed on appeal. Payment is £800 pcm.

I have had a solicitor’s letter today stating that he wants to review and potentially dismiss SM.

He has divorced his second ire recently and is in another relationship.

We had 4 children, all adult now but the youngest is still at university and is receiving monthly support of £300.from her Father.

I am 60 and have never remarried/ cohabited. He is 55.

He has recently bought out his 2nd ex wife out of their marital home worth around £700,000 and is running it as a holiday let whilst living with the new lady.

He is a high earner with a large nhs pension. I, too, have a nhs pension this is not substantial as I had 10 years off raising the children and then a further 5 years or so working part time.

I am more than willing to provide financial information though his solicitor and am willing to discuss capitalisation.

I really do not want to go back to court if I can avoid it but the letter says he is considering an application if I do not comply

He has intimated to my children that he intends to marry again and move to Australia for 5 years before he retires.

Could any of you kind wiki’s offer any advice please

This is maybe what he's been advised on recently as it only happened last year.

www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/insights/blogs/...meal-ticket-for-life

Were you granted the joint lives order on the basis of sharing his income generating potential built up during the marriage as that seems to be the aspect that has finished.

Many thanks for your reply.

The original order was made as there was limited equity and I needed a mortgage to house the children.

There was no pension share either.

The Consent Order of 2014 states that he must inform me 6 months before he retires so that capitalisation can be discussed.

It is quite difficult to understand how the high earning cases are relevant in ordinary circumstances when settlements are in the millions!

So if you had four children who are adults and you needed the spousal maintenance to pay the mortgage the next question will be to ask you to down size your property so as you don’t have or at least reduce the mortgage.

I think it’s maybe because in big money cases they have the money to pay for appeals and so on but the principle applied is the same across the board that one persons earning capacity is not an asset that is available for sharing in the same way a pension or property could be shared.

It seems like you should start asking in return about a pension share as that’s pretty normal to happen at the time of the financial remedies hearing and could go some way to replace the spousal maintenance.